The Museo Nacional de Antropología (National Museum of Anthropology) is an absolute must-see, combining anthropological studies of Mexico's Indigenous groups with a mind-bending collection of artifacts produced over the past 3,000 years. Mexico's cultural diversity and artistic genius are showcased in 23 exhibition halls that occupy more than 44,000 square feet.

Recommended Listening

The 2010 Macmillan Brown Lecture Series features Associate Professor Roger Fyfe (Senior Curator Anthropology, Canterbury Museum). He surveys the development of museums in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, asking "who owns the past?" in a series of lectures recorded at the Christchurch Art Gallery.

The Museum Life - Museums attract millions of visitors and employ thousands. The Museum Life, hosted by Carol Bossert, charts the growth and development of this cultural business. Museum Life showcases leaders in the field who provide perspective on current issue as well as creative thinkers who are impacting the future of museums. Join the conversation every Friday at 10 AM Eastern Time/7 AM Pacific on the Voice America Variety Channel.

Embedded Tweets

Questions

Which museums do a great job of modeling sustainable practices?
What happens when museums receive more visitors through their website than through their front door?

Quotes

He who views only the products of his only country may be said to inhabit a single world while those who see and consider the productions of other climes bring many worlds in review before them.
- Carl Linnaeus (1754), cited by Roger Fyfe Macmillan Brown Lecture #1, 2010

It's ironic that the term "world class"--which should embody an international panoply of forms of expression, presentation, and exploration of museum content--is instead used to hew to a singular vision of excellence.
- Nina Simon, Why is "World Class" so Classist?

Visitors are people. They are not numbers. They are not dollars. They are not deliveries. They are people who have experiences with art in art museums. I'm dismayed that the same critics who decry Deitch's disregard for artists and curators treat the public as an unimportant commodity in museums. Why do these critics care so much about the influence of money and so little about the influence of audiences? Why do they focus on what bait is presented to lure visitors in and not on what opportunities are made to engage them?
- Nina Simon, http://museumtwo.blogspot.mx/2012/08/populism-commercialism-and-jeffrey.html

Awards

the Regional Museums Award focuses on museums in their roles as local story-tellers and local ambassadors (encouraging tourism and regional development) and on how they look towards survival in the future
This year there will be three categories:

The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, Volume 1 (Download PDF)

The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, Volume 2 (Download PDF)

The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum, Volume 3 (Download PDF)

YOUR TURN - The focus of the World Museums on Flickr highlights museums around the world. Show us places you work or where you have visited. If you work with a particular museum, show us what goes on behind the scenes or how you connect with the community.

Future Chat

Relevant, useful ideas emerge. You can find patterns and threads. It's a window into many other worlds through links and exchanges. And ultimately, it simply gives you insights and perspectives from so many people that would be otherwise impossible to access without extreme effort.” So I hope you join us, as well as recruiting as many other interesting people as you can (in and out of museums) to tweet in and contribute to this fertile collision of fields. - Cindy Frewen (@Urbanverse), museumers-meet-futurists-futurists

Questions

What happens when a museum gets more visitors through its website than its front door?

Wikiloot

The idea behind WikiLoot is simple:
1. Build a collaborative web platform for the publication and analysis of primary source records and photographs documenting the illicit trade in looted antiquities.
2. Use social web and other tools to engage a broad, international network of contributors — experts, curators, journalists, investigators, academics and curious citizens — in the tagging, linking and analysis of that material.
3. With these tools, develop an authoritative public database of the illicit trade that can be used to further the public’s understanding of the scope of looting.http://chasingaphrodite.com/wikiloot/